Come Back, Be Here
by Melpomene Lee
Summary: "She's not dead! She can't be! I'd know if she was." Post!Destroy ending. Kaidan waits in the hospital for Shepard to be found after the Crucible is fired and the Reapers are destroyed.


You wake up in a hospital bed not unlike the one you just climbed out of. Someone -Liara?- is standing over your bed, talking softly, soothingly, though you can't make out any specific words. You try to sit up and your head starts to spin. Cool blue hands gently lower you back on to the pillows.

"Shh, it's alright, Kaidan," she says. "We'll talk about it later. It'll all be okay."

The sedatives pick that moment to kick back in and you feel yourself slipping back into the sweet relief of unconsciousness.

Twelve hours later, the drugs wear off again, but the transition is a bit easier this time. Liara's there again, though she mentions that the entire crew has been taking turns waiting by your bed. Your throat's drier than most of Tuchanka, but somehow the words "What happened?" find their way out.

She holds a cup to your lips and talks about how a Mako flipped over during the final assault. About how you were nearly pinned underneath it, and that you're lucky to escape with the concussion, broken ribs, and internal bruising that the doctors are treating you for. Because you suffered similar injuries so recently, they're keeping a very close eye on you, and apparently your blood pressure has been cause for some concern.

You nod like you actually care about any of that, but you and Liara both know you're not really what you're asking about.

"Liara…" You catch one of her hands in your own, and for the first time, you realize something. It's not the hand of a soft and delicate Asari princess. The hand you're holding is rough and calloused from decades of archaeological digs and paging through codex after codex on ancient cultures. Her scars and callouses very nearly match your own, though yours are from weapons training, sparring, and battles that have left you feeling more shattered than any physical injury ever could.

This war has changed everyone, but you can see it most clearly in the woman standing before you now.

She studies your face, debating with herself about how much of the truth you really need to know right now, and how much can wait until after you've recovered more.

"The Reapers are gone," she finally says, blue eyes shifting away from your gaze. "I don't know exactly what happen but...they're gone. Just...fell out of the sky and didn't move again."

 _She did it!_ The thought is triumphant, proud, though Liara still hasn't answered your real question. Her diplomatic skills have greatly improved over the years, but she still wears her heart on her sleeve, and right now you can see that heart breaking.

"Liara," you say again, voice clearer but now thick with emotion. "Where is she?"

 _Rosalyn._

The last thing you remember of her is the sound of her voice shouting at Garrus to get you back to the Normandy, a soft kiss on your lips as you're dragged to the shuttle, and then...nothing. She went on to face the Reapers by herself, leaving you in the shuttle, rapidly losing consciousness.

By your best calculations, that was three days ago. Surely _someone_ knows _something_ after three days! But you look up, and Liara's still not meeting your eyes and she gently pulls her hands out of yours.

"We don't know," she says in a near-whisper. "There's...there's a lot of debris and she was right at the epicenter of the explosion. It's been very difficult to get rescue crews there, and…" She keeps talking, but at some point the words become meaningless and blur together before they even reach your ears. The bed seems to disappear beneath you, and if you care at all, you'd swear you were falling.

"Officially, she's still MIA," Liara is saying, "but if they don't find her soon, we'll have to assume she's been...killed in action."

The word "killed" snaps you out of your trance and suddenly you're bolting upright, ignoring the spasms of pain that course through your head and chest like the worst biotic shockwave you've ever had.

"She's not dead!" The words are harsh, strangled, desperate, even. They sound like a plea or a prayer. Not the declaration you know them to be. "She can't be." More softly this time, since you're aware that Liara's jumped up to be closer to the call button, should the nurses need to sedate you again. "I-I'd know if she was. She can't be dead, Liara. I won't believe it until I see her body."

Liara nods and starts to relax, though when you actually meet her eyes, you realize that they're filled with tears that didn't even fall when her planet did. You reach for her hands again and squeeze them tightly, ignoring the pull of the IV tape against your skin.

"They'll find her, Liara. I promise. She's still here."

Something about those words strikes a chord with her, and the tears finally spill over and stain her cheeks. She tugs one hand away to dry them and somehow manages a hint of a smile.

"I keep trying to tell myself that, but I don't think it's really working."

You reach for her hand again.

"She's still here," you repeat, though you feel your confidence wobble a bit even as the words leave your lips.

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

Two more days pass. You haven't needed to be sedated for either of them, and honestly, the anticipation for news mixed with the inevitable boredom that comes from sitting in a hospital bed all day is making you wish you had been. Liara's responsibilities as the Shadow Broker pull her away from the hospital more than she would like, but the world's not ending anymore, and the Shadow Broker is one of the few things that keep the galaxy in balance. She has the rest of the squad on a rotation to keep you company, though, and today your visitors are Garrus and Tali.

Garrus pulls up a chair and Tali folds her waspy legs up so her knees are against her chest and she can sit opposite you at the foot of the bed.

You talk for a while, mostly about how unbelievable it is that the war is actually over, but that conversation eventually leads to Shepard and the mood quickly turns somber.

After a long silence, Garrus suggests playing cards. Tali brightens immediately and throws in a vote for poker, since Kasumi recently taught her how to play and apparently she's getting really good at it.

Instead of chips, you're using petals from the frankly obscene number of flowers that have piling up from people who couldn't come to see you in person. Garrus has a deck of cards hidden somewhere in his armor, and at that moment, you realize you've never seen him in civilian clothes. Do Turians even _have_ civilian clothes?

He pulls his chair closer, Tali turns so she's sitting perpendicular to you, and you grab your tray table and deal everyone in.

It doesn't take long for you to realize there may be an issue. Tali actually _is_ a pretty good beginning poker player. She's very strategic and her purple visor gives her the perfect poker face. Unfortunately for her, the surface of said visor is also very reflective, revealing her cards to anyone who glances up at her. Like you're trying to avoid doing now.

After about five hands of this, Garrus suddenly reaches over and presses a button on the side of her helmet. Instantly, a more opaque layer slides down over the visor, blocking her cards from view.

"You were showing everyone your cards," he says in response to what must've been a quizzical look from her.

"Oh! No wonder I kept losing!" Her tone is playful, but you can sense something else behind it. The look between lasts just a second too long, and in that second you realize something.

At some point during the war, while the galaxy was collapsing around them, Garrus was losing his home, Tali was regaining hers, and society as they knew it was irreversibly altered, they had become a couple.

It's a flash of inspiration that sticks with you long after they turn back to their cards and the moment is broken, but for the rest of the game, you find yourself watching them both out of the corner of your eye, looking for more hints of the something more between them.

It isn't until they leave almost an hour later that you catch it. It's subtle, and you weren't looking for you, you probably never would have noticed. As they're walking out, Garrus lightly touches her arm, thinking it's out of your view, and Tali turns her head just slightly to look at him.

Poker face.

There's no way for you to see whether she smiles at him or not, but something about her seems to relax.

It's not much. It's enough, though.

You're up late that night, eyes wide open while the heart monitor beeps steadily next to the bed. Garrus gets to sleep tonight knowing that the woman he loves is alive and safe in his arms. You have no such reassurance and you find yourself feeling jealous of him for the first time in your life.

 _Please be here. Please be here._

You repeat the words in your head like a survival mantra, though whether it's for Rosalyn's survival or your own, you couldn't say.

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

By the next day, you're practically climbing the walls. Sitting still and just _waiting_ for things to happen has never been part of your personality, and that the nurses will barely let you out of bed will probably drive you insane if they keep it up much longer.

"Mr. Alenko," one of them is saying now, "it is impera-"

"Major!" you snap back. Pulling rank is completely unnecessary and you know it, but you're also stressed and antsy, and that's always made you prone to lashing out. You can feel static starting to crackle around you, and the nurse instinctively takes a step back.

" _Major_ Alenko, it is imperative that you don't overexert yourself right now. The bruising on your spleen is no-"

"I don't care about my spleen! Just answer my question! Are the reports that Commander Shepard has been found true?"

The nurse eyes you up and down a few times. She's tough. She has to be if she's a nurse at this kind of time, but there's something in her eyes that you haven't seen from the other nurses here. A smoldering of someone who has firsthand experience with the desperate and unhinged, but also the sympathy of someone who has experienced a loss that stole a part of her as well. This isn't an official military hospital, but you'd be willing to be your not-inconsiderable pension that she used to serve in the Alliance.

Finally, she seems to relent a little. "I can't make any promises, Major, but if I try to find out for you, will you promise to stay in bed until you're cleared to get out of it?"

You nod. There's no telling what you'll do if the news is bad, but there won't be any news at all unless you agree to her bargain.

"All right, then. I'll do some digging for you, Major Alenko." Her tone has relaxed, now that you're willing to listen to her, and your name is said without a hint of patronization. You may not be her favorite patient on rotation, but she's willing to help you out and for now, that's enough.

The room gets quiet after she leaves. So quiet, in fact, that you notice the normally-imperceptible rustle of fabric from the left side of the room.

"So, how long you been sitting there?" you say to the air. After a moment, something beeps and clicks and Kasumi Goto flickers into view.

"If I said half an hour, would you believe me?"

"No."

She shrugs. "Worth a shot. A while. Slipped in while you were asleep."

You stare at her. You woke up four hours ago.

"You've been watching me _sleep?"_

"Hey, hey," she holds her hands up defensively. "Nothing creepy. I didn't want you to be alone all day, but visiting hours don't start until 1 and...I'm an early riser."

You sigh. "And you're cloaked because…?"

She smirks. "Can't accuse me of doing anything you haven't seen."

You've known Kasumi long enough to know that she messed with the room in some small, subtle way and you have to figure out how. She used to do it to Rosalyn's cabin when they were on the Normandy together. Swap a couple of her models. Turn a hanger in the closet. Little things like that. Eventually she figured out that it bothered Miranda more, and had recruited Tali to help her on several pranking missions before complaints started and Rosalyn had to put a stop to it.

"Why are you here, Kasumi? You probably have a million things to do besides sit around here with me all day."

For the first time, her playful expression turns serious.

"There are rumors starting to float around about Shepard and I wanted to make sure you were alright."

You sigh, almost collapsing back on your pillows.

"I don't even know if any of them are true or not. Do I look like I'm alright?"

Her face softens. "I'm sorry, Kaidan. As far as I can tell, they're all unsubstantiated. So far, the only thing I _know_ they've found of her is one of her gloves, but they can't even tell if she lost it before she went into the Citadel or after."

You press the heels of your hands against your eyes and rub hard, as though that'll actually wipe away all the tension that's been building up inside you over the last week.

"I honestly don't know if that's better or worse."

She gently pulls her hands away from your face. Her hands are softer than you'd expect from a technical expert and she holds yours with a delicacy that makes you think you're actually made of glass.

"I'd say it's better." Her voice has taken on a tone you've never heard from her before. Sympathy, kindness, even sadness, and you're wondering where it came from.

"Until they find a body, there's always a possibility that she's still alive."

The words that you said to reassure Liara just a couple of days ago are rapidly losing their meaning for you as time goes by.

"It's been almost a week, Kasumi!" It's an outburst you weren't really expecting, and it comes out much angrier than you intended. You can start to feel your hair stand on end from the biotic static that threatens to blow Kasumi across the room. Unlike Liara and the nurse, though, she doesn't even blink.

"If there is one person this entire galaxy who can singlehandedly destroy the Reapers and survive the aftermath, it's Commander Rosalyn Shepard. I'm not often wrong, Kaidan. My freedom depends on it." She leans in close to you, making sure you're listening, ignoring the sparks that leap towards her face and hair. "And I'm not wrong about this."

Your hands start to shake as the urge to explode passes and you realize that you're just barely holding yourself together at this point. The static flickers out and you lean back against the pillows again.

"I- It's getting hard for me to believe she could survive this long," you admit softly, thankful that Liara isn't here to see you nursing these doubts. "I just want her back."

Kasumi's expression starts to mirror the heartache you're feeling and without a word, she reaches over and smoothes down your hair a bit.

It's a simple gesture, one that reminds you of your mom. There hasn't been any word from her either, and you're starting to suspect that there isn't ever going to be. Vancouver got hit hard by the invasion and there's no telling how many bodies will never be found or identified.

"You'll get her back," Kasumi says softly, clearly fighting back tears. "I'm sure of it."

In that moment, you remember what happened to her lover. How he died, and how she was willing to risk everything to keep a part of him alive. A flash of realization suddenly hits you.

"Did she _ask_ you to keep an eye on me if anything happened to her?"

Kasumi cracks a smile at that. "Yeah. She knew I would understand what you'd be going through and I'm always happy to do a favor for the good Commander."

 _Always looking out for me_ , you think. Very Rosalyn.

"Thanks, Kasumi."

"Thank your girlfriend when she comes back, Kaidan. Women want their men to appreciate what they do."

That makes you crack a smile for the first time that day. "Yeah, they do."

Kasumi stays for a couple more hours, chattering away about her work on the Crucible and what she's going to do now that the war's over. She's funny and engaging and you can only imagine how much life she brought to the Normandy before the suicide mission. It certainly brightens up your room for a while, now that the flowers are starting to die.

Eventually she has to leave, saying something about modifying some of her equipment before she takes a new job. It only takes you a few minutes to notice what's different about the room in her absence. Liara brought your framed copy of the picture from the house party and set it on the one of the nightstands. Kasumi replaced that picture with one of herself, smiling mischievously into the camera and balancing what looks like a glass of Peruvian whiskey precariously on one finger.

You chuckle and slip the photo out. You'll find a place for it somewhere. Rosalyn will appreciate it. Something on the back catches your eye and you flip it over.

She's written you a note in a smooth, flowing hand.

 _Hang in there, Katie._

 _She's out there somewhere, and she's thinking about you._

 _XOXO, KG_

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

When you wake up the next morning, you can immediately tell something's going on. The air in the hospital is tingling with a tension you've never noticed before, even with the massive flood of injured and dying that hasn't even started to slow.

The nurses seem preoccupied. Rather than pausing to chat or comment on how your recovery's going, they come in, check your IVs, note your vitals and change a couple of bandages before disappearing again.

Something's up, and by early afternoon, you swear you're going to explode if you don't find out what.

Your first call is to Liara, but apparently she's turned her personal comm off because it doesn't even buzz before disconnecting. Garrus actually answers, but he's on the other opposite side of the Citadel and is just as clueless as you are as to what's happening at the hospital because apparently nothing's hit the news yet. Tali's with him, so there's no point in trying to ask her. The rest of the crew is unreachable, off being debriefed or reassigned to a new station or God only knows what else, but eventually you only have one more option. In hindsight, you probably should have called her first…

"Hello?"

"Kasumi. It's Kaidan. Listen, are you nearby?"

"Uhh, I can be. What's going on?"

A group of doctors and nurses runs past your door. You stare after them as though it'll give you the answers to your questions.

"I don't know; that's what I need you to find out."

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

She slips into your room fifteen minutes later, apologizing for traffic and whatnot. She's come bearing gifts, aware that you've had almost nothing to do but watch the news during your stay. Snacks, books, a piece of artwork that you could've sworn was hanging in a museum somewhere on Mindoir when the colony was destroyed. She takes a few minutes to set everything up within easy reach, chattering all the while.

"I'm glad you called when you did. I was going to come as soon as I was done shopping, but at the rate I was going, I would've ended up at every shop on the Citadel!"

She hands you something that looks and smells like a cinnamon roll from back on Earth.

"Before you ask, yes that's real cinnamon, and no I haven't figured out what all the ruckus is about, yet. I can tell you this, though. There's an entire area of the hospital that's been closed off to everyone but staff, and it was completely open and empty when I was here yesterday. I brought stuff to tide you over while you wait, and I'm going to check it out, now."

Before you can even get a word in, she's cloaked and sneaking out of the room.

You know you're both thinking the same thing - _praying_ for the same thing- but you don't dare say it aloud. Your mom always cautioned against voicing your deepest hopes and dreams where someone could hear.

"Shh," she'd say. "Don't say that wish too loudly or the devil might try to stop it from coming true."

You're not as superstitious as she was, but old habits die hard, and for the entire time Kasumi's gone, you keep the words inside, repeating them in your head like a mantra or a Hail Mary prayer.

 _Please let it be her. Please let it be her and let her be alive._

It's almost an hour before Kasumi comes back with a flushed face and bright eyes. She blurts out her news before you can even ask the question.

"She's here, Kaidan! She's here! They found her!"

You haven't been out of the bed in a week except to limp over to the bathroom or do some dexterity tests that still seem completely pointless to you. Your legs are literally shaking under your own weight and the IV pulls painfully against your skin when you move, but there is no force in the galaxy that can stop you right now.

You practically leap out of bed and hug her as tight as you possibly can. Kasumi makes a weird little squeaking noise at the sudden affection, and her returning hug is much more gentle, but the kiss she presses against your cheek is nothing short of joyful and exultant.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," you whisper against her shoulder. You have no idea if you're talking to her or the God you weren't even sure you believed in until this very moment, but it doesn't matter.

 _She's alive! Rosalyn's alive!_

It's the last thought you remember having before the monitors start beeping frantically and the room starts spinning beneath your feet.

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

Apparently your blood pressure was more concerning than anyone realized. Emergency surgery and two pints of donor blood due to the fact that your spleen wasn't actually healing all that well, and the sudden leap out of bed really didn't do it any favors.

The doctors and nurses are explaining everything to you. Something about the advances in artificial organ growth and how in a few months they can have another spleen ready to transplant back into your side. In the meantime, though, you'll have to be on long-term antibiotics, and wear a surgical mask for the next few days of your hospital stay since there are germs everywhere and not having a spleen wreaks havoc on your immune system. Said hospital stay is also going to be extended a bit, just in case there are any other life-threatening conditions they haven't found lurking inside you yet, but you consider this to be a good thing.

It means you'll be closer to Rosalyn.

Finally the doctor says "Do you have any questions, Major Alenko?"

"Just one. I was told by a reliable source that Commander Shepard has been found and is being treated at this hospital. Is this true?"

Everyone in the room looks startled. Apparently that information hadn't been made public yet, and the glare the doctor shoots at one of the nurses says this isn't the first time a leak has occurred at this hospital.

"Major, I can't discuss a patient's care without prior authorization from the patient themselves. Confidentiality laws make it impossible."

 _So, yes, then._

You grit your teeth, both in frustration and because the latest dose of morphine has quite cut through the pain of the new sutures in your side.

"Look," you say in your best 'trying-to-maintain-composure- voice, "I'm her fiancé." _Not quite._ "I'm listed as her proxy on her insurance. Check the file!"

The doctor glances at a different nurse, and she scurries off to find the appropriate paperwork. You and the doctor lock eyes.

"Please. I just want to know if she's going to be alright."

The nurse returns and the doctor breaks the line of sight first.

"Dr. Kuehler, it seems that…" Her voice fades to a whisper, but the look on Dr. Kuehler's face is enough to confirm what you already know. You have a right to know what's happening to her.

"All right," she says, still sounding irritated about the information leak. "But none of this information can leave this room, understand?"

You nod. "Of course. Where did you find her?"

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

Four days later, and you're finally up and moving around. Not very far; down to the end of the hall and back, but every step gets you closer to your goal. There's been no sign of infection so far, your other injuries are healing well, and they finally let you wear your own sweatpants, so you're already way more comfortable than you have been. Dr. Kuehler says you'll be ready to leave in another few days, but there's one thing that's still holding you back.

You still haven't been allowed to see Rosalyn.

The hospital's PR team just held a press conference earlier that morning, confirming that Commander Shepard was alive, but still being monitored in the ICU for the time being. Beyond that, they weren't planning to release any details regarding her condition for the foreseeable future. You know the truth, though.

The fact that she's alive is nothing short of a miracle, given her proximity to the Crucible when it fired. When the emergency crews finally found her, her biotic implants were short-circuiting, causing burns to her skin and threatening to set her hair on fire. Multiple broken bones; cheekbone, ribs, hands, left knee, two separate vertebrae. Depressed skull fracture. Deep cuts across her face. Bruising so extensive, they were afraid that she was at risk for a massive hemorrhage.

She's in rough shape, there is no question about it. They're keeping her in a chemically-induced coma until the swelling in her brain goes down, but so far, it hasn't been as severe as they had feared.

As you walk slowly back down the hall to your room, you hear radio chatter from the nurses' station.

"She's stable enough that we're going to start weaning her off the drugs this afternoon. Make sure you tell Major Alenko the next time you make your rounds."

You let out a sigh of relief. Finding her alive was just the first step. Getting back the Rosalyn you know will probably be a much longer process.

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

Early afternoon and it's the first time you've been allowed to see her since she was brought in. You refuse any help from the nurses, even though they're very kind to offer it. You know they're busy, and this is something you'd rather do alone.

You hover for a few minutes, first by the door, then by her bed, unsure whether you should sit or stand, if you should say anything. Take her hand?

Eventually you just decide to start by pulling up a chair. It's uncomfortable, but you're the one who refused a wheelchair, so this must be your penance for that.

She looks awful.

The bruises are starting to fade, but only just, and her face is an almost unrecognizable landscape of reds, purples, and blues, broken up by jagged lines of black sutures. Her lungs collapsed during surgery, so she hooked up to a ventilator; a giant plastic tube is threaded down her throat and a mask covers her nose and mouth. The monitor is beeping steadily, though, and you find that reassuring.

Her hands are wrapped in casts, her left leg is in traction, and even though they're cutting back on her doses, they've still got her on enough drugs to knock out a thresher maw. None of that matters, though.

 _She's here, she's here, she's here. She's alive. She's here._

You don't know how long you've been sitting there, or even that you've started to cry until a single teardrop lands on the back of her hand. You reach to wipe it away, and are suddenly acutely aware of the skin you're touching. The cast only extends as far as her second knuckles, which means her fingers are free for you to caress.

You try to be gentle, rubbing your thumb back and forth across her knuckles like you used to do when the two of you were curled up on her couch watching a movie or snuggling together in bed. There's enough familiarity in the action that you start to relax.

 _It's okay. She's here. She's here._

You lift her hand carefully and bring her fingers to your lips, kissing them as softly as you did on the day you both admitted just _how much_ you loved each other in that little cafe on the Presidium.

The tears are falling in earnest now, but thankfully no one else is around to see it.

The doses are decreasing approximately every hour, and by tomorrow night, she should be awake and staying that way. You'll take her however she comes back to you then, but for now, this is enough.

"You're here," you whisper against her hand. "You're here, you're here."

O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O

 _The first thing to come back is your hearing. A steady series of beeps. The blur of several different voices speaking all at once. You have no idea what they're saying, and as soon as you try to figure it out, the first wave of pain hits you. It almost rips the breath right out of your lungs when you feel it, and the only thing stopping you from screaming is the plastic tube that's running down your throat._

 _The beeping increases rapidly, matching your frantic heart rate and setting off another flurry of voices. Something cold prickles under the skin of your right hand and after a minute or two, the pain begins to ebb away. Finally, it's enough that you're willing to try opening your eyes._

 _They're swollen, teary, and the overhead lights are incredibly painful for them, but if you squint, you can begin to make out a few shapes. Strangers in white coats and hospital scrubs surround you._

 _The confusion is real. Your last memories are of running towards the right side of the Crucible, a blinding red light and then...nothing. There's just nothing. You have no idea where you are, how you got there, or what happened to you in the meantime, and the thought makes you panic._

 _The beeping speeds up again and one of the White Coats, an Asari, starts talking directly to you. For the first time, you can make out individual words._

" _-mmander Shepard, it's all right. It's all right, you're safe now."_

 _Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Rosalyn._ _Talking to yourself in the third person has been a coping mechanism you've used since you were small to create a bit of distance between you and the situation at hand, and right now it's helping to calm you down._

 _The Asari is still talking, but at glance at her lips says that they're words meant to calm and soothe. Nothing of real substance. Thank God. The drugs are really starting to kick in now, and your eyes flutter closed much more delicately than they opened._

 _O*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*O_

 _The next time you wake up, it's dark outside. The only light in the room is from the monitor above your head, but the beeping is slower and much more steady. You give your tender eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness before you try to get your bearings._

 _As far as you can tell, it's a pretty standard hospital room. Bed, vitals monitor, bathroom, emergency cords, tv on the wall. Your eyes wander over to the left side of the room and for the first time, you realize that you aren't alone._

 _Kaidan, looking almost as awful as he did after the Mars mission, is half-sitting, half-lying on the couch he apparently dragged over to be near your bed._

 _His head is lolling to one side and you hope that he's gotten better sleep than this in the...however long it's been since the Reapers were destroyed. Not_ _too_ _long, judging by the bruises still crisscrossing his face and collarbone, but long enough that they've faded to yellows and browns, not hovering between blues and greens._

 _It takes a second before you realize he's cradling your left hand in his own._

 _His fingers are resting lightly under your wrist and you're suddenly aware of just how warm he is. Not feverish, just...warm. Human._ _Real_ _._

 _The ventilator hisses and your vision starts to blur over with tears that sting against your swollen eyes._

 _You tap your fingers lightly against his wrist, and his eyes open blearily. He blinks a few times like he's forgotten where is before his eyes wander up to your face._

" _Rosalyn." His voice is husky from exhaustion, and he looks like he'll keel over if he breathes too hard, but a whole new light comes into his eyes when he says your name. It's the last straw for you, and the tears are suddenly flowing hard and fast._

 _Crying through a ventilator is probably the least attractive thing you've ever done, but he's still looking at you like you're made of silver and pearl. It isn't until he wipes at his own eyes that you realize he's crying too and your attempt to smile...doesn't really work. The tube's in the way._

 _You want him to kiss you; to take you into his arms and never ever, ever let go, and by the look on his face, that's the only thing he wants to do, too. The tubes and needles and wires snaking out of you make that impossible, so he's forced to settle for wiping your tears with a delicateness you never knew he had, and gently caressing your face with the backs of his fingers._

" _It's okay," he manages to choke out. "It's okay, baby. I'm here. I'm here."_

 _You're here, you're here, you're here._

 _You have so many questions, so many concerns, so many things you want to say to him. They'll all have to wait, though. Until tomorrow, or the day after, or maybe even the day after that._

 _Right now, though, you're here. Kaidan's here. You're both_ _here_ _. You're alive. You're safe. You're_ _here._

 _And for now, that is more than enough._

The End


End file.
